Morbus Pācis: Chapter 11
Jim Once I had forgiven Jo for about the millionth time, we decided to split up. "I'll go with Jo." I said, almost automatically. It seemed as if it were becoming a reflex of sorts. Although I knew Jo was capable of defending herself, I felt better knowing that I was with her. Strange. "Um, okay." Kenshin said, although he was staring at me curiously. He started handing out shotguns and handguns to everyone, and all of the bullets were salt-coated. "Castella should go with you; I mean, we wouldn't want you two getting sidetracked." Acadia added, giving Jo a pointed look. "How would we be sidetr-" "Its nothing." Jo interjected, although her cheeks flared red and her shoulders tensed. "Come on, Castella." She led the way into town, Castella following suit. I gave Acadia a puzzled look, before she shuffled me after them. "So," I started as I caught up to them. "Where would a demon be most likely to hide?" "Well," Jo began, and she sounded more relaxed than she was a moment ago. Her shoulders were loose and she seemed much more comfortable. "Anywhere really. It could be hiding anywhere in this town. In any building- in any person!" She sounded a little panicked, and I almost reached for her hand, but she seemed to steady herself. "Should we ask around again, like last time?" Castella asked, although she seemed to direct her question towards me. "I don't know." I said warily, glancing around. "I don't think we need to. This town isn't very large; besides, I'm getting a really bad feeling from that house over there." I motioned at a broken down cabin isolated from the rest of the town. We headed up the pathway, and as we got closer, I somehow knew we were in the right place. My stomach churned. There was a strange smell; almost like sulfur... I slowly pushed open the dilapidated door, afraid it would crumble at my touch. The cabin was made completely out of wood, darkened with age. There was a staircase leading upstairs, and the room ahead of us was completely dark, despite the light outside. The darkness seemed to be seeping through the walls, so I instinctively moved slightly closer to Jo. Castella seemed to notice, because she said "Maybe you guys should look down here and I'll look upstairs." Was that an undertone of jealousy in her voice? Before I could be sure, she marched up the stairs. I glanced at Jo, and we had another expression conversation, something like: ''Me: What was that about?'' ''Jo: I don't know. Battle strategy; left to right, back to front?'' ''Me: Left to right.'' She nodded, and immediately turned right. I was standing on her left, and so turned left. A couple of years ago, we had spent a whole week coming up with battle plans only we knew about; we figured the less people knew, the less anyone would expect it. We slowly tiptoed towards the dark room and, as we were about to enter, the front door shut and the corridor light flickered and went out. "Jim?" Jo's voice echoed into the darkness behind me. I held my free hand out backwards and she grasped it firmly. "I'm here." I said hoarsely. Jo's breathing quickened, but before I could say anything comforting, the lights flickered on briefly, and I saw a beautiful woman standing a few meters in front of me, dressed completely in white. I gasped lightly, but then the lights flickered on and she was gone. I turn quickly to face Jo. "Are you okay?" I asked, and she nodded slightly. We stood still for a moment, but when I realized we were still holding hands, I jumped a few feet backwards. Before Jo could say anything, I quickly blurted out "We probably shouldn't speak; the lights could go off at any minute and we'll need our other senses." She hesitated, before nodding slightly. I turned away from her, keeping my eye out for any sign of movement. The lights flickered again, and there was the woman, her face deathly pale. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus..." I began chanting, and heard Jo turn to face the woman, who started walking slowly towards us. After a few verses, I realized that the chant wasn't affecting the woman at all. "et omnis legio diabo-" I stopped myself, puzzled. Why wasn't the incantation working? Metus said it worked on most demons. "Jim?" Jo's voice was faint and hesitant. Maybe she was an upper-level demon, and the incantation wouldn't work? Or maybe the woman wasn't even a demon? "Jim." Jo's voice was insistent and demanding. I glanced and saw that the woman was almost within our reach. Her hands were held out in a threatening manner, but she still had a smile on her face. Jo seemingly decided to take action because a moment later I heard a gunshot, and the woman disappeared with a wail. I turned my head slowly and saw Jo, with her gun pointed ahead. Castella came sprinting down the stairs. "What happened?" She stammered. "I heard a gunshot; is the demon dead? Where's the body?" Jo sighed. "Its not dead, and its definitely not a demon." "Well, what are we going to do?" Castella replied, and they both looked up at me. "I g-guess we check the book." I stammered. We sprinted back to the car; Kenshin and Acadia were long gone, but the car was still in its place. I opened the door, pulled out the leather-bound book that Metus had given us, and flipped it open. "What are you looking for?" Castella asked. "I remember seeing something," I began absently. "About a white dress- here it is!" I showed them the page, and Jo read aloud. "A Woman in White is a type of ghost or spirit, a supernatural creature, that commonly kidnaps men or even children, after suffering from love issues and committing suicide when alive." "A ghost?" Castella asked incredously. "They exist?" "Apparently so." I replied. "Metus seems to have withheld that particular piece of information." "It tells us how to kill it." Jo said suddenly. Her eyes lit up with excitement. I've always loved how excited she gets about certain things. "I know." I replied. "We need to burn the bones." Castella's eyes widened. "I'd rather not. Bones means graveyards, and I can't deal with graveyards..." "Um..." I hesitated. "Okay. You can stay here, I guess. Or go and find the others?" "Sure." She said happily, before skipping off. "What about us?" Jo asked. "Us?" I said as I shut the book. "Why, we're going on an interview spree." I held out my arm. Jo hesitated for a second, before slinging hers into mine, although I could tell she seemed slightly wary. ---- After almost an hour of asking pedestrians whether they knew anything about the house, we had discovered nothing. It wasn't until we started knocking on nearby houses that we really hit a breakthrough. "A young woman lived there a few decades ago," an old man told us as we stood on his porch. "It's a dark tale that we "older people" still like to discuss sometimes. She discovered that her husband was being unfaithful and decided that taking her twin infants' lives seemed like a worthy revenge. After drowning them in a bathtub, she then proceeded to do the same to herself." A lengthy silence followed this, in which I glanced at Jo and saw that she was ashen. I grabbed her hand reassuringly before saying to the man, "Tell me, have their been a number of disappearances around this area?" "Yes, now that you mention it. Many people have disappeared over the years- even children!" "Enlighten me," I began cautiously. "But by any chance have most of the people that have disappeared been men?" After a moment, the man said "Yes they have, actually. How could you have known that?" "Lucky guess," I replied quickly. "Do you happen to know where this woman was buried? And her name?" "Her name, I'm almost certain, was Dorothy Lewis. And I don't know that she was buried. You see, when the man returned home and saw what had happened, he was allegedly so angry that he cut up her body with a butcher's knife. They say that he had all of the little pieces cremated, apart from a piece of her finger he put in a locket that he wears around his neck. Police have investigated, but whenever they go round to his place the locket's nowhere to be seen. Anyway he lives a few streets away, if you want the address?" He told me the door number and the street, before I thanked him and pulled Jo down the street. The story seemed to have really affected her; she didn't speak until we were a few minutes away from the husband's house. "Do you think its true?" She asked, her voice slightly hoarse. "How could he do that to someone that he loved? I wouldn't be able to do that to yo- someone, no matter what they did." She blushed deeply at that, but I couldn't figure out who she was close to mentioning. "Anger can make people do crazy things," was all I said, and she didn't get a chance to reply because we had reached the house and I had pressed the doorbell. No one answered at first, but after a few more insistent presses, the door burst open. "What do you want?" The man that answered said roughly. He seemed to be in his early forties, his hair starting to grey. A quick glance told me that he was indeed wearing a locket around his neck. "Um, are you Mr Lewis?" Jo asked him confidently. When the man nodded, she continued. "I was wondering if you could tell us about your former wife, Dorothy? You see, we're doing a class project and-" The man raised his hand to stop her and rolled his eyes. "Couldn't you just read through the old newspapers like every other kid that has to write about this?" "Um," I started. "We felt like taking a more personal approach; after all, the media does blow things out of proportion." The man sighed before motioning us in. I glanced at Jo, who swiftly strode into the room, so I followed. "What exactly do you want to know?" He asked as he ushered us to the couch. He sat down on the armchair opposite, and stared intently at us. "We...er..." I hesitiated. How exactly were we going to tell this man that we wanted to to examine the contents of his locket? "What happened to her?" Jo swooped in with her questions, saving me from having to come up with a feeble attempt at one. "Why do you think she did...what she did? Does her family have a history of mental illness?" "Yes," the man said simply; almost automatically. As if he had trained himself to answer that particular question with that answer. "Her mother was put into a mental asylum when Dorothy was a young girl; to this day we don't know why. Her father never spoke about it - he wouldn't even tell Dorothy - and obviously as he is dead there isn't much that we can do." Throughout his obviously rehearsed explanation, Mr. Lewis had given evidence of about four 'tells' that told me he was lying. One shared glance with Jo told me that she had seen the signs too. She hesitated, not knowing how to continue the conversation, when I decided to just tell him the truth. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but we were running out of options. "You're lying to us, Mr. Lewis," I said calmly as he glanced at me. "If you tell us the truth, we could hel-" He stopped me from finishing my sentence by lunging at me and shoving me onto the floor. There was nothing I could do as he clasped his hands around my throat and started to strangle me. Then Jo screamed with rage, and everything went cold as a miniture blizzard blew Mr. Lewis off of me and to the other side of the room. Jo was suddenly at my side and pulled me up. "Are you alright?" She asked slightly breathlessly, as I stared at her in wonder. Her eyes examined the bruises on my neck. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said, waving it off. "That...that was amazing! Really, really amazing." She smiled awkwardly- the way she always does when I give her a compliment. I loved the smile because it was as if she knew what she had done to recieve a compliment was amazing, but was to modest to really take credit. "It was nothing, really," she said after a moment. "No, it was something great," I replied with a smile, before grabbing her arm and turning her to face Mr. Lewis' still body. "I-is he dead?" Jo said with a small voice. "Of course not," I replied, knowing she would never forgive herself if he was. I moved towards him, hoping that he was just unconscious, and just as I crouched beside him, he groaned. I hastened my pace, pulled the locket from around his neck, and sprinted out of the house with Jo at my side. It wasn't until we were a few blocks away, inside the gate of the ghost cabin, that we stopped running. "You...can...open it," I said breathlessly, handing Jo the locket and collapsing onto the dying grass. She sat down beside me - our shoulders brushed - and pried the locket open. A moment later, she gagged slightly, and closed it again. "This is it," she confirmed, at my questioning look. "Where should we-" She faltered, staring at something behind me. I glanced back and saw the pale faced woman in white staring at us from inside the window. I quickly shot up - as did Jo - and pulled the shot guns out of the rucksack I had been wearing on my back. I handed one to Jo and pointed mine at the woman. She seemed to notice the locket in Jo's hand, as her face contorted with rage before the window smashed and she disappeared. A sudden gasp behind me told me that Jo had found her. I turned just in time to see the woman telekinetically shove Jo into a hedge, the locket falling from her hand. "HEY!" I shouted, as she began to make her way towards Jo- presumably to finish her off. The woman turned, and to my surprise she smiled. I glanced at Jo who was groaning next to the hedge and when I glanced back the woman was an inch away from me. Before I could scream, she placed her hand on my chest. Water started to spurt out of my mouth, and I couldn't breathe. I collapsed onto my knees, helpless as my lungs filled with water. The woman began to laugh maniacally, but that was nothing compared to the sound of Jo's horrified scream. "JIM!" She yelled, before I heard a gunshot. I stopped spurting water, but there was still a reasonably large volume of it in my lungs. Before I could do anything to try and get it out of me, I found myself slowly drifting off into the land of unconsciousness, hearing Jo desperately tell me to stay awake. ---- I woke up still collapsed on the floor, although I was turned so that I was facing upwards. I sat up and started to say something when Jo jumped to me. She hugged me really tight and didn't let go for a few minutes, but when she did I saw that her eyes were bloodshot. "Morning," I said, trying to get her to crack a smile. She didn't. "You were dead!" She yelled at me as she stood up. "You were unconscious and I couldn't check on you because I had to deal with he woman - who's been burnt, by the way, no thanks to you - and by the time I got to you it was too late!" She suddenly went extremely red. "So I had to give you mouth to mouth to try and get the water out of your lungs and when you finally coughed it all out and started breathing normally you still hadn't woken up and I was terrified!" She screamed with frustration - at me - and seemed like she was going to say something else, but before she could I stood up and attacked her with a hug. "I did wake up in the end, thanks to you," I added with a grin as we broke apart. The end of her mouth curved slightly, but then she pursed her lips. "Don't do that again," she said, almost pleadingly, and I knew now wasn't the time to joke. "I won't," I replied as we resumed the hug. "I didn't think she would do that; all I could think of was getting her away from you." Jo leaned back slightly so that she could look at me. "Jim, I-er, I want to tell you something. And I feel like - considering what just happened - now would be a suitable tim-" She was interrupted by the sound of the gate swinging open. We broke apart as Castella trekked up the pathway. "There you two are, I've been looking for you," she said, slightly annoyed. "I told the others to go back and wait in the car, no use in all of us getting lost. Did you kill her?" After a moment, Jo replied with "Er, yeah. Come on, I'll tell you all about it in the car." She made her way back down the pathway, anything she was going to say before clearly forgotten. Category:Albus Chase Category:The Supernatural Chronicles Category:Chapter Page Category:Morbus Pācis